


gold can stay

by reedpayne



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: ColdAtom Secret Santa, F/F, M/M, but also there's zero explanation why/how, coldatom, greaser!Ray, it's an AU where everyone is alive, it's cute i love them, just go with it, leonard is also dramatic and gay, leonard works at the library, the other legends made bets on colatom, the steelwave is small but it's there, wish i had room for more totem girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 08:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13231884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reedpayne/pseuds/reedpayne
Summary: Yet another anachronism caused by their fucking-up of time had drawn the Legends to Chicago, the year 1965.





	gold can stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [readwriteandavengers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/readwriteandavengers/gifts).



> HAPPY NEW YEARS! 
> 
> so this fic was written for my dear friend kennedy ([readwriteandavengers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/readwriteandavengers)/[frostyriphunter](http://frostyriphunter.tumblr.com/)) for the 2017 coldatom secret santa! ken, i hope you enjoy this and also don't mind that i twisted your prompt just a smidge! i know it's been a rough year for you and i hope that 2018 treats you well <3
> 
> special shoutout to [spectrasydniescope](archiveofourown.org/users/spectrasydniescope) for helping me work out the plot!

Yet another anachronism caused by their fucking-up of time had drawn the Legends to Chicago, the year 1965. In the midst of the greaser era, a previously unheard of gang of college aged boys who called themselves _The Dragons_ had managed to get their hands on high powered weapons from the 22nd century and had proceeded to wreak havoc on the citizens of Chicago, leaving the city a desolate wasteland by the time 2017 rolled around. Being only a level 6 anachronism, Leonard was sure they could somehow manage to take care of business without fucking up too terribly.

He hadn't been prepared to see Raymond, perhaps the biggest nerd in existence next to Cisco Ramon, dressed to the nines in tight jeans with holes in the knees, an equally tight white t-shirt, and his hair slicked back in a way that had Leonard's heart stumbling over itself to keep up the moment he laid eyes on him.

"Remind us again why Ray is the one that gets to go," Nate whined, breaking Leonard's train of thought before it could get progressively dirtier.

"Because he's the only one of us who can do that hair," Sara explained for perhaps the thousandth time, as if the reasoning made any sense at all. "Now shut your mouth before I shut it for you."

"You know, I've always wanted to be a greaser!" Ray exclaimed, tugging at the sleeves of the leather jacket and straightening up the slightly wrinkled t-shirt underneath.

"Of course you have," Leonard finally piped up, not one to miss an opportunity to make fun of Ray. "You're a regular ol' Danny Zuko, Raymond."

Raymond, as predicted, merely rolled his eyes at Leonard and didn't deem him worthy of a response. Leonard was fine with that, really.

"Please, boys, keep the flirting to a minimum," Zari drawled out from her spot next to Amaya on the opposite side of the bridge from Leonard. She should consider herself lucky that she wasn't in his reach, Leonard thought moodily. "So what exactly is Ray supposed to do when he gets out there?"

"Infiltrate these so-called _Dragons_ and find out where they're getting their weapons from," Sara explained, also for the thousandth time. Leonard didn't envy her position as their captain.

"Since a certain talking computer couldn't do it the conventional way," Nate muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Leonard to hear.

"Dr. Heywood, as I have told you before--," Gideon started to rebut, her tone full of sass, but Sara was quick to jump in and shut that down.

"Enough!" She all but shouted, throwing her hands up. "Not one more word! Ray, make sure you have everything you need and get your ass out there; the sooner you get out there and infiltrate, the sooner we can get this anachronism taken care of and get the Time Bastards off our asses."

Leonard had a retort about asses and the captain in regards to Agent Sharpe, but he held his tongue, knowing better than to irritate the trained assassin.

"Shouldn't you send somebody with him for back up?" Amaya spoke up, watching Ray gather up his things with concern.

"I'll go," Jax volunteered immediately, always eager to get off the Waverider and stretch his legs a little.

"Actually, Snart, you're going," Sara stated, turning to smirk knowingly at Leonard. "Follow Ray from a safe distance and keep us updated on how the mission is going. If the gang members see him talking to what looks like just himself, they'll never let him into their ranks."

"Aye aye, Captain," Leonard drawled, pretending to be uninterested. He was completely unsurprised by this news -- he'd expected Sara to pair him up with Ray, as she always attempted to do even if he ended up working with Mick instead 75% of the time.

"So the rest of us are stuck on the ship for how long?" As if he'd heard his name in Leonard's thoughts, it was Mick that spoke up that time.

"However long it takes Ray to figure out where the weapons are coming from and put a stop to it," Sara told him. That had at least half of the team, including Leonard, groaning in annoyance. The Legends weren't exactly known for being quick.

"Come on, guys, this is gonna be fun!" Ray encouraged, one of his signature dopey grins lighting up his face.

Leonard really hated him.

* * *

 "Can't believe Haircut actually managed to get a bunch o' gangbangers to study at a library," Mick grunt came through the comlink. Leonard could just barely hear a muttering of agreement in the background.

"Never doubt my buddy Ray!" Leonard heard Nate exclaim, which had him rolling his eyes. If he weren't so sure Nate was head over heels in love with Mick, he'd suspect the frat boy wannabe had a thing for Ray.

"I must say, I'm astonished by how quickly he appears to have gained the trust of _The Dragons_ ," Stein spoke up.

"You're astonished by everything, Professor," Leonard drawled back, taking any opportunity he could to distract himself from the scene playing out in front of him.

The mission, thus far, had gone off without a hitch. It'd barely been 24 hours and already Raymond had managed to insinuate himself into the group of Ponyboy Curtis lookalikes with no problem at all, just a few perfectly timed sarcastic comments and hints at a past life of crime landing him a spot on the crew in no time. They'd all but absorbed the man, not seeming to care at all that Ray was a great deal older than the rest, whom ranged anywhere from nineteen to twenty nine. If anything, the age gap seemed to help him out that much more -- the _Dragons_ , it appeared, saw him as an older, more experienced, perhaps wise man who fit perfectly into their little gang.

To say Leonard had been shocked by how perfectly Ray played into the roll of a greaser would be an understatement. It was completely baffled; Jax might even refer to him as shook, though Leonard would never utter the word himself. He'd always been attracted to Ray -- how could he not? How could anybody who ever laid eyes on Ray not? --, but this? This attraction was on an entirely different level.

Leonard wanted to do so many things to Ray, at least 23 of them involving that stupid leather jacket and his stupid slicked back hair.

He managed to resurface from those thoughts through sheer power of will, refocusing his attention to eavesdropping on the conversation between _The Dragons_. Except before he could get completely back on track, a throat cleared behind him and he turned around, barely holding back a groan of annoyance when he spotted the little old librarian.

"Is there something I can help you with?" She asked him, her voice stern, just like every other librarian Leonard had ever encountered. It must be something they learn in librarian school, he mused to himself.

"Actually," he started, letting the corners of his mouth tilt up into the most charming smile he could manage. He could only hope she would fall for his little act and not see right through him, like many old ladies were wont to do. "Would you happen to be hiring? I'm new to town and was hoping to get integrated into this.. lovely little community as soon as possible."

The woman deflated the tiniest bit, obviously caught off guard by either his question or his charm, perhaps even both.

"As a matter of fact, we are," she told him, and Leonard mentally high-fived himself for his spur of the moment plan. "We're looking for someone help with re-shelving books. It's usually a position offered up to the students here at the college."

"Oh, I am a student," he lied smoothly, ramping up the charm factor just a smidge more. He whipped out his wallet and slid out the student id he'd had Gideon fabricate before the mission just in case a need for one arose. "In fact, I'm working on my Masters in English. What better place to work that the campus library?"

"Well then," the librarian said as she inspected the fake student card, then handed it back over to him and gave him a small smile. "Come fill out some papers and you can get started as soon as possible. As you can imagine, there are a lot of books that need to be re-shelved."

"Perfect."

* * *

Being a greaser, it turned out, was everything Ray wanted it to be. The _Dragon_ guys were pretty cool, if a bit dim, and it hadn't been hard at all to insinuate himself into the group. He'd been nervous at first, especially knowing that Leonard wasn't far behind, watching his every move and reporting back to the rest of the team. With his comlink turned off, Ray had felt odd and left out, but _The Dragons_ had been doing a pretty good job of pulling him into their loop. They were all too eager to talk to him, asking him details about his fake past, wanting to know all they could about the cool older guy that was now a part of their group.

It made Ray feel pretty damn awesome.

"So, Raymond," the leader of _The Dragons_ , Chad ("It's actually Christopher-Michael, but they call me Chad."), started, and then paused for a moment to give Ray another assessing look. It was obvious that he still didn't fully trust Ray like the others did, but he trusted the opinions of his men enough to allow him into their little posse. "Got yourself a girl back in Starling?"

"Oh, no," Ray was quick to deny with a shake of his head. "I mean, I've dated a few people and I was once engaged to be married but it, uh, didn't work out." He tried not to let the thought of Anna make him all sad, but it was hard, even so many years later.

"I know that look," one of the others (Connor, maybe?) spoke up. Ray turned to look at him and saw a smirk firmly in place on the guy's face. It sort of reminded him of Leonard's, but he wasn't about to let his brain take a dive down that rabbit hole, not while surrounded by a bunch of probably dangerous guys he barely knew. "Palmer got himself a little crush."

That had the other boys beginning to hoop and holler, not caring at all that the librarian was now glaring at them all fiercely.

"I don't, not really," Ray tried to deny, but it just wound the boys up that much more, hearing his denial. It had taken a lot of clever convincing and a little reverse psychology to get the guys to come to the library in the first place, and he wasn't about to let them get kicked right back out for being too loud, so Ray held up his hands in mock surrender, if only to get the others to calm down a little. "Alright, fine! Quiet down and maybe I'll tell you about it."

"C'mon, Palmer, don't be shy," Chad piped up with a sly grin. "You're one of us now, yeah? We wanna know 'bout this special girl."

"Well, uh," Ray started, and then paused, because he had no idea how the Dragons might react to the fact that his crush happened to be on another man, and a man of color, at that. The 60s weren't exactly the most tolerable era, especially to anybody that wasn't straight or white, so he knew he'd have to be extremely careful about what he let slip. "This person is, uh, really _cool_." He had to physically stop himself from laughing at his own stupid pun, if only because nobody else at the table would understand it. "A, um, thief, and a pretty.. damn good one at that. The best I've ever met." He paused for another moment, trying to figure out his words. "Kind of ridiculously beautiful, in a way that's really unfair to everybody else in the world. Nobody compares, y'know?"

The library grew silent for a moment or two before there was a sudden uproar of laughter with a few, "Palmer is in love!"s thrown in there just to spice it up. Ray rolled his eyes and ducked his head just the slightest bit in an effort to hide any sort of blush that attempted to creep onto his face.

He was trying to come up with another, better way to quiet the boys down a little and keep them from getting kicked out of the library when they were interrupted by an unfamiliar face. Ray didn't know this boy, but he was wearing the same jacket as the rest of the boys at the table aside from Ray, proclaiming him to be a member of _The Dragons_. His face was red, and he appeared to be out of breath, possibly from running a far distance. He stopped next to Chad, paused for a moment to catch his breath, and then started in on a long winded spiel.

"Dude, we got a problem! I don't know what the fuck kind of shit you and your dad got us into, but shit is about to hit the ceiling, dude. That weapons dealer dude we got that sick ass stuff from? Yeah, decided he wants more than what we gave him. He's threatening our families if we don't pay up. C'mon, heifers, we gotta go take care of this guy! We gotta teach him a lesson: nobody messes with _The Dragons_!"

Another loud hoopla of agreements bubbles out of the group of boys. In seconds, the group jumped up from their seats and took off running out of the library, Ray trailing behind them at a slightly slower pace. He managed to switch his comlink on without any of them noticing, and muttered a quick message before shutting it up and taking off after them.

"Time to kick some anachronism butt!"

* * *

 Students really should be paid more than minimum wage for this, Leonard thought to himself as he went down yet another row, re-shelving book after book. He wasn't exactly young anymore, hadn't been in many years, and the tedious work had already begun to wear him out.

His only reprieve came when he finally made it to the shelf next to the table Ray and the rest of The Dragons had set up camp at. Luckily, that particular shelf had more than most that needed to go back, so Leonard was all too happy to take his time putting it all away while eavesdropping on the greasers' conversation as subtly as possible.

He was shocked to hear the subject of significant others come up, but was all too happy to listen to what Ray had to say. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to catch all of it, just a little too far away to hear every word, but the stuff he did catch made him stop in his tracks and hold his breath for fear of missing anything else.

"This person is, uh, really _cool,_ " Leonard could just hear Ray's voice saying. He wondered why the emphasis on the word cool, but didn't want to think too hard on it. "Thief... pretty damn good one at that.. Best I've ever met." He strained his ears as much as possible, wanting to catch as many words as he physically could. "Ridiculously beautiful, in a way that's really unfair... Nobody compares, y'know?"

Oh. So that was why he had put emphasis on the word cool.

Raymond had a crush on _him_.

* * *

"The anachronism has successfully been erased from the timeline, Captain Lance," Gideon said cheerfully as the team made their way back onto the Waverider.

"Fantastic! Good work, guys," Sara called out to the rest of them. Before any of them got the chance to do so, she shouted "First shower!" and took off running towards the single bathroom that all 9 of them shared. All of the others groaned in frustration but didn't protest, instead heading towards their individual rooms (or, in the case of Nate and Mick as well as Amaya and Zari, shared rooms) for some much needed rest before they moved on to the next anachronism.

Leonard stayed towards the back of the group, walking much slower than the rest. Ray wasn't much further ahead, too happy and sedated from a victory to move much faster. He was still clothed in that ridiculous leather jacket, though the white t-shirt underneath was now a more muddy brown and the jeans had rips that hadn't been artfully placed there on purpose. How he managed to make be covered in dirt and grime look gorgeous, Leonard would never understand.  
He thought back to the conversation he'd overheard several hours earlier in the library. As always, his curiosity got the better of him, and, as much as he wished he could, there was no way he could pretend like the entire thing hadn't happened.

"Raymond," he called out before he could psych himself out. He stopped where he was, just around the corner from the hallway that held most of their quarters, hopefully out of the earshot of most of the other Legends.

Ray, upon hearing Leonard call his name, had paused and then walked back to stand next to Leonard. He had a small frown on his face, and Leonard absolutely refused to find his expression of curiosity and confusion cute, because it absolutely was not cute. Not even a little bit.

"What's up, Leonard?" Ray questioned, and Leonard had to swallow thickly, because the way Ray said his name just wasn't fair at all.

"We need to talk," he drawled, trying and failing to muster up his usual level of snark. He steeled himself as much as he could, standing up a little bit taller and squaring his shoulders, then looked Ray right in the eye with confidence he really didn't feel at all. "I just so happened to overhear your little chat with _Christopher-Michael_. The one about your.. crush. You know, me."

"Oh." Ray's eyes widened and he took a small step back, looking down at his feet to avoid making eye contact with Leonard. "I, uh. I mean. None of that stuff was true! I just made it up, all of it! Had to get them off my back and everything, you know. I'm.. sorry about that."

"Made it up?" Leonard mused, staring at Ray's face as he spoke. "Hmm. That's really too bad."

"Too bad?" Ray repeated, dragging his gaze off of the floor to look at Leonard, his expression now a cross between confusion and hope. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean it as, 'too bad, because you're not too bad yourself, and I wouldn't mind getting to know you on a more.. personal level'," Leonard explained, finishing out his explanation with a small wink, again drawing on that confidence that he didn't actually feel at all, but knew was deep down in there somewhere.

"Oh," Ray repeated. He licked his lips and blinked several times in fast repetition, then gave himself a small pinch on the thigh, as if checking to make sure he was still awake after all. "I might have.. not been lying? About any of it," he admitted after a moment. "I may have.. feelings for you."

"Really now? Well, that's just perfect," Leonard drawled, closing the small space between them until he stood right in front of Ray, mere inches between the two of them. "Care to move on to the 'getting to know you on a more personal level' part of the show?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Ray breathed out, and then Leonard was kissing him, and everything was golden.

Around the corner, Nate high fived Amaya, accepted a $10 bill from both Jax and Zari, and gave Mick a messy kiss on the cheek.

"That's my buddy Ray!"

**Author's Note:**

> thank y'all so much for the read! as always, you can find me on tumblr at [acezari](http://acezari.tumblr.com/)! all comments, kudos, and questions are appreciated, and my inbox is always open for prompts!


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